Use of Cognates in Bilingual Speakers: A Picture-Word Interference Paradigm Study

Abstract

Cognates share the same semantic and similar phonological/morphological forms across two languages (e.g., dinosaur - English; dinosaurio - Spanish); therefore, the use of cognates can have an effect across the different languages. Non-cognates include words whose translation equivalents have different spellings and sound patterns (e.g., king - English; rey - Spanish). Twenty-five highly proficient English-Spanish bilingual speakers named cognates and non-cognates in a picture-word interference paradigm. All stimuli were presented in English, participants responded in English and were unaware of the bilingual nature of the study. English-Spanish speakers who have a high spoken proficiency in both languages demonstrated a definite pattern of facilitatory effects when cognates were named compared to non-cognates. These results suggest that both lexical networks were invoked during naming and provide future directions in the treatment for bilingual individuals with aphasia.